ENGLISH

The Enlightenment Qur'an: The Politics of Translation and the Construction of Islam

By Ziad Elmarsafy

Book information

Publisher
Oneworld Publications
Year
2014
ISBN
9781780744858, 1780744854
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
13 MB (13704409 bytes)
Pages
288\286
Topic
History
Time added
2020-02-13 09:36:09
European Enlightenment

Description

Iconoclastic and fiercely rational, the European Enlightenment witnessed the birth of modern Western society and thought. Reason was sacrosanct and for the first time, religious belief and institutions were open to widespread criticism. In this groundbreaking book, Ziad Elmarsafy challenges this accepted wisdom to argue that religion was still hugely influential in the era. But the religion in question wasn’t Christianity – it was Islam. Charting the history of Qur’anic translations in Europe during the 18th and early 19th Centuries, Elmarsafy shows that a number of key enlightenment figures – including Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, and Napoleon – drew both inspiration and ideas from the Qur’an. Controversially placing Islam at the heart of the European Enlightenment, this lucid and well argued work is a valuable window into the interaction of East and West during this pivotal epoch in human history. Ziad Elmarsafy is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, UK.

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